Syrian intelligence officers have begun to evacuate their headquarters in Beirut in a partial withdrawal initially to the Bekaa valley.
All 150 to 200 Syrian intelligence agents in Beirut, the north and the Mount Lebanon area overlooking the capital, are expected to have moved to eastern Lebanon by Wednesday.
Syrian intelligence retains its Lebanon headquarters in the Bekaa Valley town of Anjar, but the closure of the Beirut office indicates that they have almost completed the first phase of a withdrawal from Lebanon announced 10 days ago.
Around 3,000 pro-Syrian students marched on the US embassy near Beirut, burning Israeli and American flags and denouncing what they said was Washington's interference in Lebanese affairs.
Lebanese soldiers and riot police, backed by armoured troop carriers, put up metal barricades and barbed wire to keep the protesters away from the embassy complex in Awkar, north of Beirut, but the protest went off peacefully.
Lebanon's pro-Syrian Prime Minister-designate, Omar Karami, has begun meeting politicians and parliamentary blocs on the make-up of a unity government to defuse the country's worst political crisis in 15 years.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak met Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, in Damascus today, and though Syrian media said they discussed Lebanon, no details were given.
